Post by redsycorax on Sept 1, 2019 3:26:12 GMT
Timmy Toyboy was an orphan for hire designed to beg on the streets and obtain small change by false means, by Bezra and Eleanor February. Late one night, he tried rubbing a ring with a zipper-shaped insignia that he found in their attic. The Februarys were actually creatures from another dimension , and the ring summoned Duranduran , one of the Zipper People.
Duranduran explained that, ages ago, the Zipper People ruled this particular alternate Earth. Through rushing out a barely perfected teleport with some remaining kinks in it onto the market, the byproduct reduced most of their population to trouser zippers. Only a few Zipper People managed to escape to the Dimension of Dim where they waited for "one person... pure of liver" (due to a mistranslation from their archaic language) to fight crime, fashion disasters and poor consumer protection, which had proved to be their own downfall. Timmy was that person. By rubbing his ring and saying "I wish I were the Zipper," he exchanged bodies with Duranduran in the Dimension of Dim and became a costumed adult superhero. To return to his own identity, all he had to do was say his current address backwards while standing on his head wearing pink pancake makeup.
The Zipper dressed in a poorly colour coordinated outfit, which was predominately dark green leotard with yellow shorts, belt and a yellow over-the-head mask, which was surplus to requirements because his secret identity was supposed to be a child . A pair of purple goggle-like eye pieces covered his eyes and a set of "wings" were built into his collar area. Originally the wings were small and merely decorative in purpose. However, when the Zipper suddenly became capable of flight, the wings miraculously larger and somehow assisted his ability to take to the air. Don't ask me how, I'm only the narrator.
On Earth-862, history took a strange turn. Canada invaded and occupied New England and the natives of the area found that they preferred the milieu and refused to rejoin the United States when the war ended. Instead of being governed by a president, the Remaining United States of Slightly Infringed America (RUSSIA) was governed by a Chancellor. Gender equality was not a problem at all here, so about half of the fifty RUSSIA Chancellors to date have been women. Chelsea Rodham is the current incumbent. Casual visitors to Earth-862 should be aware that this alternate Earth has no nudity taboos whatsoever. Polyandry is also perfectly legal here, although polygyny isn't. The solar system only has six planets- Herm, Venerea, Earth, Tyre, Jovea and Kronoz. Technology is slightly more advanced than ours, so they're currently awaiting the return of data from uncrewed interstellar probes sent out to investigate the neighbouring stars. Despite superheroes, Earth-862 lacks any supervillains whatsoever. Superheroes spend all their time crimefighting.
Later, the Zipper married his longtime sweetheart Mona Whittaker and they had a daughter, Yvette, who miraculously inherited her fathers powers and became...the Female Zipper. Other superheroes on this world are affiliated to the Law Infringement Action Responders (LIAR). They include The Eye (who is a giant disembodied eye with an unexplained origin), Zsazsa the Mythic (a Hungarian witch who speaks highly accented English, with erratic spellcasting powers), and the Purple Turtle (with the gift of supertardiness...).
Now read on:
"Great Pelvic Thrusts!!! Why, it's the Zipsignal. Come on, Female Zipper, to the Fortress of Benificence!!!"
"Is it Chancellor Rodham again?"
"I imagine a desperate criminal syndicate must be placing the health and safety of RUSSIA at risk!!!"
"By the way, Timmy, isn't the tubeway to the Fortress rather visible?"
"What makes you say that?"
"Nothing, apart from the fluorescent sign Saying "The Zipper's Secret Transit Tube to the Secret Fortress of Benificence, Situated at the South Magnetic Pole."
"Female Zipper, I'm worried at your cynical tone of voice."
"Look, this is no time for existential angst. It's only the 1940s on our Earth and much too soon for that sort of character development. Go on, rub your ring and let's climb into the tubes..."
The other members of LIAR had also been summoned, leading to their usual arrivals. The Eye materialised from nowhere, Zsazsa the Mythical materialised, only to find that her hair had turned purple and she had three eyes. After another five tries, she finally appeared in the vicinity of the White Palace, home to the Chancellor of RUSSIA. The Purple Turtle had scarcely moved from the vicinity of the White Palace at the conclusion of their previous mission, so he was accounted for. Chancellor Rodham came out on the balcony:
"LIAR, we have a crisis. Meat is being smuggled into RUSSIA."
"Dead animal flesh?! Who could commit such a heinous crime against other sentient beings?" The Zipper cried.
"As you are aware, under the Thirty-Third Amendment to RUSSIA's Charter of Rights, meat prohibition has been the law of the land since Chancellor Davis passed the Animal Rights Amendment in 1982. It's like those other vile cultural practices that are condemned in civilised countries- caffeine consumption, mime acts, male kilts and Barbara Cartland romantic novels."
The Female Zipper kept quiet, worried that her strait-laced father would one day discover her stash of badly written novels such as Saggy at Eighty, the Bitter Drains of Wallow, No Intestine is Free, The Captive Pancreas, the Wild and Unwilling Priest, A Kitty-Cat for Satan, Wind Strikes Satan and His Magnificent Jodphurs. The Purple Turtle opened his mouth, leading to an accelerated translation:
"Mademoiselle Chancellor, who is responsible for this act of barbarity? It's not the Canadians, is it?"
Chancellor Rodham put down her clove cigarette:
"We think not, this time. They have their hands full trying to sell off Alasker, given that we, the Holy Patriarchate of Muscovy, the Britannical Imperium, Australasia, Sinasia and the Peoples Republic of Ruritania have turned them down several times. They're too desperate to interfere in RUSSIA's domestic affairs right now."
However, in the sinister confines of the communistical dictatorship of Ruritania, Comissar Eva T. Terriblov inhaled the smoke from her Cuban cigar, tried to get up from her desk and finally succeeded on the third try. She picked up a green bakelite telephone:
"Hello. This the Peoples Republic of Glorious Ruritania. Connect me to Vice Incorporated."
"I'm sorry, Vice Incorporated is busy right now. Would you like to go on hold?"
"Nyet! Listen here, capitalist running badger, connect now or face consequences from Ruritanian chemical weapons arsenal..."
"Eva, bubbeleh. Long time, no see."
"Mortein, why you affect cod Jewish accent when not even remotely kosher? Anyhoo. How meat smuggling conspiracy going?"
"Oh, marvy poo, Eva doll. We've managed to accumulate three million schmeckers so far."
"Hahahaha haha ha ha. Ha. Glorious Peoples Ruritania will subvert RUSSIA with cholesterol causing fatty dead animal flesh and destroy its public health! Ha. Hahahahaha. Ha."
Unfortunately for evil Eva, Zsazsa the Mythical's erratic psychic powers were working at that point:
"Darlinks! I haff picked up Eva T. Terriblov's brainwaifs. Zey are behind the meat smuggling conspiracy!!"
"Can you teleport us there, Zsazsa?"
"Not. My abilities haff gone on ze blink again."
The Eye's pupil rolled up and if it had had any other organs, it would have either sighed or groaned. As the putatively strongest member of LIAR, though, it realised what it had to do. It teleported itself to Ruritania, turned invisible, then used its pyrokinetic vision abilities on the entire bootleg Ruritanian meat supply. Eva Terriblov moved quickly- well, as fast as her statuesque proportions could manage anyway- to avoid loss of life and the Ruritanian Peoples Army had barbeque for most of that year, which made a refreshing change from the stereotypical communistical food shortages that usually prevailed. Which left LIAR with a dilemma, given that they'd foiled this nefarious collusion of crime lords and international communistical dietary subversion without any effort whatsoever, which left an embarrassing narrative hole to fill.
But little did LIAR realise that they were being watched from the timeless cosmic reaches of the universe. Which is odd, because there were not supposed to be any supervillains in their particular universe and only six paragraphs in is a record for continuity breach. Antaeus the Bouncer brooded on Mount Remaindered, formerly Mount Olympus until all the classical Greek deities of antiquity moved off planet, leaving also-rans and some of their lamer element behind. He had once been a superhero himself, until his husband Simon Pink had been abducted by Zeta Reticulans and he lost purpose, meaning and sex on tap. Others lurked on Mount Remaindered too, such as the Off-Kilter Mask, who only gained superpowers when she got drunk- she'd once been the Gold Mask, empowered by an obscure Egyptian magical hieroglyphic, but due to an unpleasant interlude in Bleedspace, her abilities had suffered an unexplained shift. [Originally, I was going to include The Owl and Owl Girl too, but someone beat me to it, so I had to dredge up my own half-forgotten short-run Golden Age figures- Author]
Martina Martini (Off-Kilter Mask) tottered into the Mount Remaindered facility and gulped down a vodka chaser:
'Whashup, Anty?"
The Bouncer frowned at his former team mate:
"Why were we booted out of LIAR so unceremoniously?"
"I hadshed the affair with Justin Beiblake and your powers were just (hic) shilly."
"Why? Like certain other heroes elsewhere in the multiverse, at least I could have lost my powers and rehabilitated myself. I think I'll turn evil in retaliation."
Off-Kilter Mask shook her head. Her cape fell off: "Shorry. Thish is an Innochint Silverfish Agesh type universh. No-onesh allowed to kill anyone and there are no shupervillainsh."
"I know. Bleh. Meat is illegal in RUSSIA, as are coffee drinking, mime artists, male kilts and Barbara Cartland romantic novels."
"Yesh, we've been through that expo$#!*ory dialogue already, Anty, get on with it."
"But should I?"
"Are yoush going to engage in cheap existential angsht for the next hour or so? If thatsh the casesh, I'm off to the drinksh cabinet." Uncertainly, Off-Kilter Mask weaved her way through numerous haphazardly placed props, not quite making it in several cases, which only prolonged The Bouncer's existential conflict and prevarication for another thirty minutes. At the end of that period, he still hadn't reached a decision, so he angsted for another half hour. Technically, with its omnipotence, the Eye should have been aware of this, but even metaphysical optical behemoths can get bored, and quite understandably, the Eye had. As it had no mouth, it couldn't tell its LIAR colleagues, either. Meanwhile, Off-Kilter Mask was snoring loudly in the Mount Remaindered Wine Cellar.
"Take off that kilt!"
"But I'm nae wearing anything underneath!"
"Either you take it off or we'll rip it off you!"
Hamish McHunk considered this, then realised that this world had no nudity taboos and that he had nothing whatsoever to hide. He unkilted:
"Thair. Is thaet better?"
"Do a little dance." A New Lancaster Police Department cop begged.
"Nae. An mae ah say, you fellahs aire seriously culturally insensitive."
"But this is the nineteen forties and people aren't embarrassed by grotesque racist stereotypes yet."
"Whaitever." As the former husband of Earth-55 superhero Lightpower trod away, he wondered how he'd turned up here. And where was his beloved Dirk?
Meanwhile, the Eye had managed to foil a bank robbery by resorting to its immobilising gaze and somehow, without limbs, it had managed to tie them up and leave them for the police. It longed for its early days as a young oculoid, on the distant planet Physiologon, where disembodied human body parts had established a civilisation of relative peace and harmony. Eyes, Noses, Ears, Mouths, Hands, Feet and (ahem) Other Body Parts (...) co-existed in joyous and free exchange of views and perspectives. And so, it could not last. One dark day, Physiologon had been raided by a cut-throat gang of renegade cosmetic surgeons and its population was decimated. The Eye had been the only survivor of the vaguely tragic if improbable catastrophe that had befallen his people and in a rocket, left Physiologon to live elsewhere in the cosmos. Because Physiologon orbited 61 Cygni, this turned out to be Earth, a mere sixteen light years away. The Eye couldn't talk of the tragedy of his homeworld (as he had no mouth or vocal cords).
That interlude over, the Zipper and Female Zipper soared over Quotidian City, awaiting a criminal endeavour to dispatch. Ultimately, they caught a bank robbery in progress. The identical, interchangeable thugs looked up. Thug One said:
"It's them that Zipper and that there Female Zipper!!!"
"You don't scare us, super-coppers!!!"
"Stand and desist, evildoers!!!" The Zipper barked.
Sundry POW, WHAM, SOCK, BIFF and WALLOP sound effects later, the trio were lying down on the ground as the boys and girls in aqua (the colour of law enforcement on Earth-862) arrived to take the misecreants off to the local watch house.
The Purple Turtle had actually located the illegal meat pusher distribution ring, but thus far, it had taken him four hours to reach down to the signal device and summon the other LIAR members. Fortunately, however, he was so supertardy that the evil henchpeople of the meat ring didn't notice him in the background, or his imperceptibly slow bodily movements. At length, the signal was finally sent, and the Eye, Zipper and Female Zipper converged on the deserted brick warehouse. An horrific sight met their eyes:
"MOOOO!!!"
"Unhand that cow!!!" Female Zipper cried.
"That cow is our property. It's going to be killed and its byproducts distributed to people who are sick and tired of this lacklustre vegan diet Congress has forced the entire country on!"
"That's a Canadian accent! You're Canuck subversives who have set out to corrupt and weaken the American way!!!" The Zipper gasped.
"Meat is murder!!!" Female Zipper added.
"Prohibition never works!" The Bouncer said, throwing off his facemask. Despite the fact that he was wearing exactly the same cod Grecian robes as had been the case when he was a LIAR member, the others had failed to recognise him at all. Not even the Eye had worked out that it was their former ally, and it was supposedly omniscient. It furrowed its monobrow and prepared to zap the Bouncer, when Off-Kilter Mask stumbled into the room, uncharacteristically in the throes of soberness:
"Ooooh. My head. Hands up, Female Zipper and Zipper. It's time this world had some decent supervillains, so Bouncy and I have decided to turn bad and run the illegal meat distribution ring." The Eye prepared to zap both of them, when the Purple Turtle inched out of hiding and a convenient net fell over the Bouncer and Off-Kilter Mask, who stumbled into the path of the concealed trapdoor that the villains had sought to lure LIAR into. The criminals fell into a deep pit as LIAR freed the traumatised cows from prospective slaughter.
Elsewhere, Hamish had found Dirk, who had made some discoveries on his own:
"Okay, so meat and boxing are all illegal here, while public nudity, homosexuality and polyandry never have been. America is called RUSSIA. Canada is this world's sole ultrapower. Lying doesn't exist here as a concept, so politics is humdrum, religion doesn't exist at all, and nor does advertising. What a stultifyingly boring alternate Earth. And to think Earth-55 was cancelled out of existence to make way for this."
The Eye had turned up. A slip of yellow paper appeared:
Excuse me, if you're leaving this place, can I come with you? It's no fun being on a world where nothing ever happens and the degree of hyperbolic conformity to the Comics Code Authority stifles any character development or adult sophistication whatsoever.
"Och, sure thing. You sound far too interesting for this wurld." Abruptly, the three of them vanished as their transmatter relocator signals activated and took them back to miraculously restored Earth-55. In distant space, a blinding antimatter storm vortex suddenly appeared and pulsating with fury and oblivion, it descended on Earth 862's planetary system. However, it then veered off to the right and ignored it. Instants later, every portal to that universe was sealed over with a fluorescent DO NOT DISTURB sign and Earth-862 wasn't. Its metahuman inhabitants followed formulaic, repetitious plotlines with little character development or adult content sophistication for the next fifteen billion years, by which time its sun should have expanded into a red giant and consumed its entire planetary system, but that would have meant dramatic tension and a meaningful existential challenge to the metahumans there and that Earth's inhabitants, so it simply didn't.
As far as anyone knows, Earth-862 is still stuck there.
THE END
Duranduran explained that, ages ago, the Zipper People ruled this particular alternate Earth. Through rushing out a barely perfected teleport with some remaining kinks in it onto the market, the byproduct reduced most of their population to trouser zippers. Only a few Zipper People managed to escape to the Dimension of Dim where they waited for "one person... pure of liver" (due to a mistranslation from their archaic language) to fight crime, fashion disasters and poor consumer protection, which had proved to be their own downfall. Timmy was that person. By rubbing his ring and saying "I wish I were the Zipper," he exchanged bodies with Duranduran in the Dimension of Dim and became a costumed adult superhero. To return to his own identity, all he had to do was say his current address backwards while standing on his head wearing pink pancake makeup.
The Zipper dressed in a poorly colour coordinated outfit, which was predominately dark green leotard with yellow shorts, belt and a yellow over-the-head mask, which was surplus to requirements because his secret identity was supposed to be a child . A pair of purple goggle-like eye pieces covered his eyes and a set of "wings" were built into his collar area. Originally the wings were small and merely decorative in purpose. However, when the Zipper suddenly became capable of flight, the wings miraculously larger and somehow assisted his ability to take to the air. Don't ask me how, I'm only the narrator.
On Earth-862, history took a strange turn. Canada invaded and occupied New England and the natives of the area found that they preferred the milieu and refused to rejoin the United States when the war ended. Instead of being governed by a president, the Remaining United States of Slightly Infringed America (RUSSIA) was governed by a Chancellor. Gender equality was not a problem at all here, so about half of the fifty RUSSIA Chancellors to date have been women. Chelsea Rodham is the current incumbent. Casual visitors to Earth-862 should be aware that this alternate Earth has no nudity taboos whatsoever. Polyandry is also perfectly legal here, although polygyny isn't. The solar system only has six planets- Herm, Venerea, Earth, Tyre, Jovea and Kronoz. Technology is slightly more advanced than ours, so they're currently awaiting the return of data from uncrewed interstellar probes sent out to investigate the neighbouring stars. Despite superheroes, Earth-862 lacks any supervillains whatsoever. Superheroes spend all their time crimefighting.
Later, the Zipper married his longtime sweetheart Mona Whittaker and they had a daughter, Yvette, who miraculously inherited her fathers powers and became...the Female Zipper. Other superheroes on this world are affiliated to the Law Infringement Action Responders (LIAR). They include The Eye (who is a giant disembodied eye with an unexplained origin), Zsazsa the Mythic (a Hungarian witch who speaks highly accented English, with erratic spellcasting powers), and the Purple Turtle (with the gift of supertardiness...).
Now read on:
"Great Pelvic Thrusts!!! Why, it's the Zipsignal. Come on, Female Zipper, to the Fortress of Benificence!!!"
"Is it Chancellor Rodham again?"
"I imagine a desperate criminal syndicate must be placing the health and safety of RUSSIA at risk!!!"
"By the way, Timmy, isn't the tubeway to the Fortress rather visible?"
"What makes you say that?"
"Nothing, apart from the fluorescent sign Saying "The Zipper's Secret Transit Tube to the Secret Fortress of Benificence, Situated at the South Magnetic Pole."
"Female Zipper, I'm worried at your cynical tone of voice."
"Look, this is no time for existential angst. It's only the 1940s on our Earth and much too soon for that sort of character development. Go on, rub your ring and let's climb into the tubes..."
The other members of LIAR had also been summoned, leading to their usual arrivals. The Eye materialised from nowhere, Zsazsa the Mythical materialised, only to find that her hair had turned purple and she had three eyes. After another five tries, she finally appeared in the vicinity of the White Palace, home to the Chancellor of RUSSIA. The Purple Turtle had scarcely moved from the vicinity of the White Palace at the conclusion of their previous mission, so he was accounted for. Chancellor Rodham came out on the balcony:
"LIAR, we have a crisis. Meat is being smuggled into RUSSIA."
"Dead animal flesh?! Who could commit such a heinous crime against other sentient beings?" The Zipper cried.
"As you are aware, under the Thirty-Third Amendment to RUSSIA's Charter of Rights, meat prohibition has been the law of the land since Chancellor Davis passed the Animal Rights Amendment in 1982. It's like those other vile cultural practices that are condemned in civilised countries- caffeine consumption, mime acts, male kilts and Barbara Cartland romantic novels."
The Female Zipper kept quiet, worried that her strait-laced father would one day discover her stash of badly written novels such as Saggy at Eighty, the Bitter Drains of Wallow, No Intestine is Free, The Captive Pancreas, the Wild and Unwilling Priest, A Kitty-Cat for Satan, Wind Strikes Satan and His Magnificent Jodphurs. The Purple Turtle opened his mouth, leading to an accelerated translation:
"Mademoiselle Chancellor, who is responsible for this act of barbarity? It's not the Canadians, is it?"
Chancellor Rodham put down her clove cigarette:
"We think not, this time. They have their hands full trying to sell off Alasker, given that we, the Holy Patriarchate of Muscovy, the Britannical Imperium, Australasia, Sinasia and the Peoples Republic of Ruritania have turned them down several times. They're too desperate to interfere in RUSSIA's domestic affairs right now."
However, in the sinister confines of the communistical dictatorship of Ruritania, Comissar Eva T. Terriblov inhaled the smoke from her Cuban cigar, tried to get up from her desk and finally succeeded on the third try. She picked up a green bakelite telephone:
"Hello. This the Peoples Republic of Glorious Ruritania. Connect me to Vice Incorporated."
"I'm sorry, Vice Incorporated is busy right now. Would you like to go on hold?"
"Nyet! Listen here, capitalist running badger, connect now or face consequences from Ruritanian chemical weapons arsenal..."
"Eva, bubbeleh. Long time, no see."
"Mortein, why you affect cod Jewish accent when not even remotely kosher? Anyhoo. How meat smuggling conspiracy going?"
"Oh, marvy poo, Eva doll. We've managed to accumulate three million schmeckers so far."
"Hahahaha haha ha ha. Ha. Glorious Peoples Ruritania will subvert RUSSIA with cholesterol causing fatty dead animal flesh and destroy its public health! Ha. Hahahahaha. Ha."
Unfortunately for evil Eva, Zsazsa the Mythical's erratic psychic powers were working at that point:
"Darlinks! I haff picked up Eva T. Terriblov's brainwaifs. Zey are behind the meat smuggling conspiracy!!"
"Can you teleport us there, Zsazsa?"
"Not. My abilities haff gone on ze blink again."
The Eye's pupil rolled up and if it had had any other organs, it would have either sighed or groaned. As the putatively strongest member of LIAR, though, it realised what it had to do. It teleported itself to Ruritania, turned invisible, then used its pyrokinetic vision abilities on the entire bootleg Ruritanian meat supply. Eva Terriblov moved quickly- well, as fast as her statuesque proportions could manage anyway- to avoid loss of life and the Ruritanian Peoples Army had barbeque for most of that year, which made a refreshing change from the stereotypical communistical food shortages that usually prevailed. Which left LIAR with a dilemma, given that they'd foiled this nefarious collusion of crime lords and international communistical dietary subversion without any effort whatsoever, which left an embarrassing narrative hole to fill.
But little did LIAR realise that they were being watched from the timeless cosmic reaches of the universe. Which is odd, because there were not supposed to be any supervillains in their particular universe and only six paragraphs in is a record for continuity breach. Antaeus the Bouncer brooded on Mount Remaindered, formerly Mount Olympus until all the classical Greek deities of antiquity moved off planet, leaving also-rans and some of their lamer element behind. He had once been a superhero himself, until his husband Simon Pink had been abducted by Zeta Reticulans and he lost purpose, meaning and sex on tap. Others lurked on Mount Remaindered too, such as the Off-Kilter Mask, who only gained superpowers when she got drunk- she'd once been the Gold Mask, empowered by an obscure Egyptian magical hieroglyphic, but due to an unpleasant interlude in Bleedspace, her abilities had suffered an unexplained shift. [Originally, I was going to include The Owl and Owl Girl too, but someone beat me to it, so I had to dredge up my own half-forgotten short-run Golden Age figures- Author]
Martina Martini (Off-Kilter Mask) tottered into the Mount Remaindered facility and gulped down a vodka chaser:
'Whashup, Anty?"
The Bouncer frowned at his former team mate:
"Why were we booted out of LIAR so unceremoniously?"
"I hadshed the affair with Justin Beiblake and your powers were just (hic) shilly."
"Why? Like certain other heroes elsewhere in the multiverse, at least I could have lost my powers and rehabilitated myself. I think I'll turn evil in retaliation."
Off-Kilter Mask shook her head. Her cape fell off: "Shorry. Thish is an Innochint Silverfish Agesh type universh. No-onesh allowed to kill anyone and there are no shupervillainsh."
"I know. Bleh. Meat is illegal in RUSSIA, as are coffee drinking, mime artists, male kilts and Barbara Cartland romantic novels."
"Yesh, we've been through that expo$#!*ory dialogue already, Anty, get on with it."
"But should I?"
"Are yoush going to engage in cheap existential angsht for the next hour or so? If thatsh the casesh, I'm off to the drinksh cabinet." Uncertainly, Off-Kilter Mask weaved her way through numerous haphazardly placed props, not quite making it in several cases, which only prolonged The Bouncer's existential conflict and prevarication for another thirty minutes. At the end of that period, he still hadn't reached a decision, so he angsted for another half hour. Technically, with its omnipotence, the Eye should have been aware of this, but even metaphysical optical behemoths can get bored, and quite understandably, the Eye had. As it had no mouth, it couldn't tell its LIAR colleagues, either. Meanwhile, Off-Kilter Mask was snoring loudly in the Mount Remaindered Wine Cellar.
"Take off that kilt!"
"But I'm nae wearing anything underneath!"
"Either you take it off or we'll rip it off you!"
Hamish McHunk considered this, then realised that this world had no nudity taboos and that he had nothing whatsoever to hide. He unkilted:
"Thair. Is thaet better?"
"Do a little dance." A New Lancaster Police Department cop begged.
"Nae. An mae ah say, you fellahs aire seriously culturally insensitive."
"But this is the nineteen forties and people aren't embarrassed by grotesque racist stereotypes yet."
"Whaitever." As the former husband of Earth-55 superhero Lightpower trod away, he wondered how he'd turned up here. And where was his beloved Dirk?
Meanwhile, the Eye had managed to foil a bank robbery by resorting to its immobilising gaze and somehow, without limbs, it had managed to tie them up and leave them for the police. It longed for its early days as a young oculoid, on the distant planet Physiologon, where disembodied human body parts had established a civilisation of relative peace and harmony. Eyes, Noses, Ears, Mouths, Hands, Feet and (ahem) Other Body Parts (...) co-existed in joyous and free exchange of views and perspectives. And so, it could not last. One dark day, Physiologon had been raided by a cut-throat gang of renegade cosmetic surgeons and its population was decimated. The Eye had been the only survivor of the vaguely tragic if improbable catastrophe that had befallen his people and in a rocket, left Physiologon to live elsewhere in the cosmos. Because Physiologon orbited 61 Cygni, this turned out to be Earth, a mere sixteen light years away. The Eye couldn't talk of the tragedy of his homeworld (as he had no mouth or vocal cords).
That interlude over, the Zipper and Female Zipper soared over Quotidian City, awaiting a criminal endeavour to dispatch. Ultimately, they caught a bank robbery in progress. The identical, interchangeable thugs looked up. Thug One said:
"It's them that Zipper and that there Female Zipper!!!"
"You don't scare us, super-coppers!!!"
"Stand and desist, evildoers!!!" The Zipper barked.
Sundry POW, WHAM, SOCK, BIFF and WALLOP sound effects later, the trio were lying down on the ground as the boys and girls in aqua (the colour of law enforcement on Earth-862) arrived to take the misecreants off to the local watch house.
The Purple Turtle had actually located the illegal meat pusher distribution ring, but thus far, it had taken him four hours to reach down to the signal device and summon the other LIAR members. Fortunately, however, he was so supertardy that the evil henchpeople of the meat ring didn't notice him in the background, or his imperceptibly slow bodily movements. At length, the signal was finally sent, and the Eye, Zipper and Female Zipper converged on the deserted brick warehouse. An horrific sight met their eyes:
"MOOOO!!!"
"Unhand that cow!!!" Female Zipper cried.
"That cow is our property. It's going to be killed and its byproducts distributed to people who are sick and tired of this lacklustre vegan diet Congress has forced the entire country on!"
"That's a Canadian accent! You're Canuck subversives who have set out to corrupt and weaken the American way!!!" The Zipper gasped.
"Meat is murder!!!" Female Zipper added.
"Prohibition never works!" The Bouncer said, throwing off his facemask. Despite the fact that he was wearing exactly the same cod Grecian robes as had been the case when he was a LIAR member, the others had failed to recognise him at all. Not even the Eye had worked out that it was their former ally, and it was supposedly omniscient. It furrowed its monobrow and prepared to zap the Bouncer, when Off-Kilter Mask stumbled into the room, uncharacteristically in the throes of soberness:
"Ooooh. My head. Hands up, Female Zipper and Zipper. It's time this world had some decent supervillains, so Bouncy and I have decided to turn bad and run the illegal meat distribution ring." The Eye prepared to zap both of them, when the Purple Turtle inched out of hiding and a convenient net fell over the Bouncer and Off-Kilter Mask, who stumbled into the path of the concealed trapdoor that the villains had sought to lure LIAR into. The criminals fell into a deep pit as LIAR freed the traumatised cows from prospective slaughter.
Elsewhere, Hamish had found Dirk, who had made some discoveries on his own:
"Okay, so meat and boxing are all illegal here, while public nudity, homosexuality and polyandry never have been. America is called RUSSIA. Canada is this world's sole ultrapower. Lying doesn't exist here as a concept, so politics is humdrum, religion doesn't exist at all, and nor does advertising. What a stultifyingly boring alternate Earth. And to think Earth-55 was cancelled out of existence to make way for this."
The Eye had turned up. A slip of yellow paper appeared:
Excuse me, if you're leaving this place, can I come with you? It's no fun being on a world where nothing ever happens and the degree of hyperbolic conformity to the Comics Code Authority stifles any character development or adult sophistication whatsoever.
"Och, sure thing. You sound far too interesting for this wurld." Abruptly, the three of them vanished as their transmatter relocator signals activated and took them back to miraculously restored Earth-55. In distant space, a blinding antimatter storm vortex suddenly appeared and pulsating with fury and oblivion, it descended on Earth 862's planetary system. However, it then veered off to the right and ignored it. Instants later, every portal to that universe was sealed over with a fluorescent DO NOT DISTURB sign and Earth-862 wasn't. Its metahuman inhabitants followed formulaic, repetitious plotlines with little character development or adult content sophistication for the next fifteen billion years, by which time its sun should have expanded into a red giant and consumed its entire planetary system, but that would have meant dramatic tension and a meaningful existential challenge to the metahumans there and that Earth's inhabitants, so it simply didn't.
As far as anyone knows, Earth-862 is still stuck there.
THE END